Salt Lake City

Okay, so I'm a bit late in updating this, so all of Salt lake City will be in one big entry, okay?

Right.

Flying from New York to Salt Lake City wasn't too bad. We had to go via Phoenix, which looked really nice from the plane, and had to sit on the second plane in Phoenix for ages because of a data recorder being replaced on the plane (they showed us MASH, so that was great), but apart from that it was great.

Met up with Olga and Alex and met their baby Rina (she's so tiny!) and just hung out that their place that night. They have two cats called Loki and Irie which Esther loved having around, which was great as it offset the whole 'baby' thing. Esther seemed to take a shine to Rina as the week went on though ;)

The second day in Salt Lake Esther and I went into town and walked around, looking at the Mormon temple and other related SLC sights. The snow was pretty brilliant, but we ran for a and missed our bus, so that was rather annoying. We still made it back to Olga and Alex's house in time though because we had to watch Oprah. Oprah? Yes! For once something good was on. They were having a special about World Record holders and Sarah's (who we'd hung out with in New York) dad, Kent French (seen him on youtube anyone?) was on there because he is the 'worlds fastest clapper'. It was pretty funny.
Here is him on YouTube showing off his skillz:



Third day we went into town again, went internerding at the library, ate a tasty cheap Sizzler lunch (best) and walked aaaaaallllll the way up the hill to the Captial Building. We got pretty out of breath thanks to it being very high above sea level. I got pins and needles in my lips and tounge thanks to that.
The building is really nice, but we discovered that all the 'marble' they have is fake. Nice one guys.
We had a lot of fun outside in the snow, kicking it all over the place. Esther stacked it pretty good and I got it on video. YouTube will have a delivery of that video once I get home!

Fourth day we ended up hiring a car and driving to Park City for the day. Up there is all the ski resorts and HEAPS of snow. We didn't go skiing, but spent the day walking around and just looking at all the countryside.

The Fifth day we did NOTHING. We sat around at Olga and Alex's house playing with cats, babies and tv. It was a nice relaxing day.

The sixth day didn't actually involve SLC, but leaving SLC for Las Vegas!
We hired another car and drove (well, I drove, Esther sat there helpless) there though a whiteout of snow, driving rains and 70km/h winds. We made it in one piece and set out to tour the sights and sounds of Vegas.
Describing the casinos individually would be boring, so here is the list we saw and the highlights:
The Mirage, Caesars Palace, The Venetian/Pallazo, Treasure Island, Sahara, MGM, Bellagio, New York New York, Excalibur, Luxor. The Venetian casino has a gondola INSIDE the casino ON THE SECOND FLOOR. Its not even dug into the ground on the ground floor, but its high up in the casino on the second floor. The Bellagio had the very cool and famous fountain show outside which was worth seeing (the one from Oceans Eleven) and The Mirage had this cool volcano outside that spewed fire. Oh, and the Luxor is a massive pyramid. Very cool.
That night I was horribly sick thanks to food poisoning. Thanks Las Vegas style chicken.

Seventh day I had to drive Esther and myself home from Las Vegas when I should have been in bed thanks to the food poisoning. The drive should have taken 6 hours, but instead it took 10 hours. The day went like this: drive for a bit, stop, sleep, vomit, repeat. Esther can't/couldn't drive, so that was no help, but she did a good job of looking after me in my vomity state.
After arriving at Olga's, she gave me some Phenergan (what I'd been praying for all day) to stop the vomiting, so instead I just felt horrible! What a way to spend my last night in Salt Lake City!